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Opie
Bio Opie made a career out of being a loyal soldier to the city of Thornmoor, leading a group of Thornmacht guards to victory over various groups of invaders. After Ethergaarde began competing for technological achievement with his steam-powered city, Opie witnessed a number of envoys dispatched to Ethergaarde only to return without much inside knowledge. Thornmoor decided a different path: rather than a silver-tongued ambassador, they sought an unpretentious soldier to act as an envoy. Opie was promoted, and dispatched to Ethergaarde. While there, he met with Skipta, learned of the traitor Sigmund, and heard a rumor that two nobles were going to be changing the way "trade would be done with the city". Opie decided to take matters into his own hands and search the nobles down. In the process, he witnessed a group of brigands leaving the manor of Earl Gillet and hid himself in a crate on their skiff. When he arrived as a stowaway, he found himself in a dank sewer. It is here that he heard terrible, mysterious sounds and met the shadow elf Azrael and the wood elf Feredire not much longer. Opie's crowning achievement was being swallowed by an undead crocodile and using his fiery breath weapon on its innards, destroying it. Unfortunately, he met his end shortly thereafter: by three chests marked with "choose wisely", he and Feredire grabbed the objects and alerted a group of nearly 80 rats. The rats swarmed and bit both of them until they died. The envoy to Thornmoor would never return. Background This was the DM background given before Chapter 10: The Fall of Heroes You are a member of the Thornmacht, the city state of Thornmoor’s guard force. The Mage Council there has seen your developments as an asset to the state, and has appointed you as a special envoy to Ethergaarde. Your goal is to meet with Ethergaarde’s prominent politicians and cement the relationship between the two kingdoms, which should allow for a great flow of gold reserves which are needed for Thornmoor’s upcoming technological revolution. They chose you as you are known even by some of the Ethergaarde’s troops as a fearless defender of your civilization, a reputation that earns you honor. However, there’s something more to this envoy position: you were also chosen because you make for a particularly unlikely spy. Word in Thornmoor is that there are feverish, secret meetings taking place in Ethergaarde and ones with likely substantial effects on trading. Your goal is to get the real story about the rumored chaos. Each of the silver-tongued envoys Thornmoor has sent before have failed, having been blocked from meetings, respected but ultimately distrusted. Maybe this time, an unpretentious soldier could work. About a month ago, you met with Lord Skipta, the head of Ethergaard himself. It was after you noticed a paranoid feeling sinking into the entire Ethercourt. There was a massive town meeting, with Skipta claiming that a man named Sigmund had put the town in danger by becoming an “agent of chaos”, a traitor to the guard force who leaked secrets to “an enemy”. Sigmund had been “spreading lies” that the downfall of civilization was coming soon, to cause “mass hysteria”. He reportedly resisted arrest and was killed after running through the streets. Afterwards, your meeting with Skipta took place. Skipta was a marvelous man, careful and skillful in rhetoric and manner, imparting to you a sense of need for civilization to continue even in the face of “growing threats outside the walls of both of our kingdoms”. On this ominous note, you took your leave, and decided to pursue a night out with some of Skipta’s guards. In the process, you gleaned some interesting information from a drunken Etherknight: a set of nobles named Alderman Jaynyn and Earl Gillet are going to do “quite a bit to change how business is done in the town”. When you pressed for more information, the Etherknight realized he had already said too much. The next few weeks you spent meeting lower level functionaries to little benefit, and finally chose to track the nobles down. One night, while getting the lay of the land around their manors, you watched a band of tattooed brigands leaving their manor. Wanting to know more, you followed them and even hid yourself in a crate on their skiff. As a stowaway, the pit in your stomach grew as the boat appeared to be moving underground. The group was mostly quiet, but they kept saying how these noblemen would “get what was coming to them”. When the ship was docked, four men painstakingly unloaded the boat, including you. In the intervening time, you’ve managed to get free. You are now in the sewers, which have been converted into what appears to be a makeshift smuggler’s hideout. The rest of the time has been filled with strange, flitting images, disembodied sounds--are you hallucinating? Was that a beautiful woman in the distance? It’s hard to concentrate, with sharp pains in your head, footfalls not far away, self-doubts consuming your waking thoughts. How long has it been since you slept? You are pulled from your tortured thoughts by the sound of clanking swords and fired arrows in a chamber to the south. You are hidden safely in the crate you arrived with, ready to emerge again when you choose.